Driven by the motive of boosting child health, Rajasthan has taken this decisive step to only feed mother’s milk to toddlers. Newborns at 11 government hospitals which are recipients of Aanchal Mothers’ Milk Bank will be either breastfed or given mother’s milk.
According to the health department order issued on Wednesday, “the newborns have to be breastfed; if a mother is unable to feed the newborn, or the baby is premature and unable to suck, then human milk will be provided free to the child.”
The health department order also banned the feeding of formula, dairy (packed and open), cow, goat and other milk for newborns at the hospitals.
“For the first time in India, all kinds of milk have been banned in 11 government hospitals other than human milk, which is a big achievement in Rajasthan,” said Devendra Agarwal, adviser to the state health department for the ‘mother milk bank project’.
An ornamental Rs 10 crore have been invested in human milk banking with an operation cost of Rs 5 crore per annum by Rajasthan, the first state to do so. “Mother’s milk reduces neonatal mortality by 22% and recovery of newborns admitted to intensive care units increases by 40%.
Impressively, 6,32,753ml milk had been donated by 3576 lactating mothers at 11 hospitals till April 30.
Aanchal Mothers’ Milk Bank operations commenced in 11 government facilities, between February 2016 and April this year, Agarwal said.
The state houses 13 human milk banks at various locations spread across the state. Rabindranath Tagore Medical College in Udaipur, 10 district hospitals in Bharatpur, Alwar, Chittorgarh, Beawar, Banswara, Bhilwara, Bundi, Tonk, Baran and Churu, at Sawai Man Singh Medical College in Jaipur run by the Norway government, and one in private Mahatma Gandhi Medical College in Jaipur.
